What Is an ASP File? Files created with Active Server Pages have the extension .ASP. This story is an example; take a look at the address above. With ASP files, you can activate your Web site using any combination of HTML, scripting such as JavaScript or Visual Basic?

Is It Hard to Use? I don't know about you, but whenever people start talking about doing things on the server, I start to get nervous. I think a lot about threading issues, synchronization, and generally stuff without a user interface. I assume it's going to be hard to do. Well, using ASP is about as easy as anything I've come across in years.

Aw, Mom. Not Another Object Model! I really hate doing this to you, but I'm going to have to use that overused and overcomplex term "object model" again. Here's how it works. When a browser requests an ASP file from your Web server, your Web server calls Active Server Pages to read through the ASP file, executing any of the commands contained within and sending the resulting HTML page to the browser.

Whether you’re a small-time webmaster, or a small business looking to get online, one of the biggest headaches you can have is choosing a good webhost. The market is completely saturated, and what’s worst is that it’s not a level one, with big corps at one end and kids at school running the lowest end. The problem for many people looking to get their website hosted is that the big corps are simply too expensive for what is required, especially if you’re only looking to put a few key business pages online. The other problem is that there are so many fly-by-nights out there, especially kids in school who think that being computer literate means they can get some pocket money. Until they get bored of the business responsibilities and fold up.

What the discerning person needs to do is find one of the players in the middle – cost-effective pricing, with companies or staff who have a few years proven experience as a webhost. Many of these are small businesses with maybe just 2-5 employees, but so long as they know what they are doing, and can provide support as and when required, on stable servers, you should do fine. Of course, the challenge here is finding such a company. At the end of the day it’s simply the case that the best webhost differs according to different personal needs and priorities. For example, how important is pricing to you? If you’re only putting a small website online and don’t plan on generate much in the way of costs, then obviously cost may be an over-riding factor. And if it’s only a few pages, then the support requirements are likely to be pretty low.